


sleepwalk. ii

by Xairathan



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Summary: I can't look you in the eyes when we talk / no matter which emotion I draw out of the pile
Relationships: Jeanne d'Arc Alter | Avenger/Nagao Kagetora | Lancer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	sleepwalk. ii

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BreadCrumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreadCrumble/gifts).



> Written as a writing trade for Breadcrumble! Yeah I'm still on my sleepwalk kick fight me.

_I hate this._

Every passing moment kindles new hatred in Jeanne Alter’s chest. With how hot her skin must be getting, it’s a wonder that Kagetora hasn’t let go already. She instead keeps hold of Jeanne Alter’s waist— keeps nuzzling into the back of her neck, nosing sweat-laden hair out of the way.

Jeanne Alter digs her shoulder into the bed, wriggling against Kagetora’s grasp. Without tightening or loosing her grip, Kagetora lets her move. She’s grown accustomed to Jeanne Alter’s sporadic motions. She knows it’s the Alter’s nature to try and leave, and to try and burn the one bridge she’s managed to keep on the way out. She also knows how much Jeanne Alter hates it— the urge to doubt mindlessly, destroy compulsively.

_She’s just faking it._

Jeanne Alter shuts her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. She’s long since learned that it does nothing to quell her racing pulse, but it gives her something else to think about. Counting the seconds between exhales, Jeanne Alter forgets how quickly Kagetora can change from biting blemishes against her neck to kissing them, to settling down to sleep like she hadn’t just had Jeanne Alter under her, rather than beside her.

This is the part of the god of war that still puzzles Jeanne Alter. For all her love of combat and challenges, her gentleness is no less earnest. It’s something unexpected; it’s something that Jeanne Alter, in her more lucid moments, might think belongs to _Nagao Kagetora_ rather than _Uesugi Kenshin_.

Usually, Kagetora is easily placated with a few kisses. She’s content with the pittance of affection that Jeanne Alter allows herself to show, and with stroking Jeanne Alter’s hair as she drifts off to sleep. Kagetora’s oddly persistent tonight. Her lips trace the same patterns on the curve of Jeanne Alter’s neck; her fingers settle against her hips in shifting constellations. Moments like these make Jeanne Alter wish she could let herself be more giving— that each show of affection that Jeanne Alter could offer did not have its own matching peal of fire to suppress.

_Why does it matter to me? This isn’t real, anyway._

Jeanne Alter squeezes her eyes shut, fighting back instinctive tremors. She goes through her usual paces: this is a dream; Kagetora’s only pitying her; this won’t last anyway. No one could care for Jeanne Alter with such tenderness; if they did, surely it would be out of some well-intentioned and vulgar sympathy; as with everyone else who’s approached her, they’d be driven away soon enough. When Kagetora’s done with her, it’s hard for Jeanne Alter to tell which stage of the dream she’s ended up in. With the echoes of Kagetora against her eyelids, the ghost of reverent hands against her skin, Jeanne Alter could believe this was real. She wishes so badly that it were true— but why would it ever be?

“Alter?” Kagetora’s voice, low and drowsy, freezes Jeanne Alter’s racing thoughts in place. Her words emerge, muffled, from where Kagetora has her face buried in the fringe of Jeanne Alter’s hair. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jeanne Alter huffs. That’s another reason for her to go. Stay any longer, and Kagetora’s bound to start back up with the ‘avatar of Bishamonten’ routine.

Kagetora says, instead, “Are you certain?” Her forehead lifts from the back of Jeanne Alter’s head; her chin nestles against the join of her neck and shoulder. Two green eyes, glimmering like the sea Jeanne Alter had once dreamed of, peer curiously at her. “You seemed quite distracted tonight.”

“None of your business.”

“And you haven’t called me any names.” Kagetora shifts her body weight forward, rearranges her hands. She pulls Jeanne Alter in towards herself, and yet her expected proclamation doesn’t come. There’s no mention of extending the protection of Bishamonten, just Kagetora’s pensive hum.

The following silence stretches on for what must be minutes, winds itself into tight coils around Jeanne Alter’s chest. Kagetora should be speaking. Should be pestering her, should be chasing the answer that Jeanne Alter finds herself unable to give. That’s what the god of war would do. Whether or not it’s something Nagao Kagetora would do is irrelevant; Jeanne Alter doesn’t dream of Nagao Kagetora—

(When she dreams, she dreams in fire; if not fire, then of the watchful crowd, among whom only God turns a blind eye; if not that, then of the void from which she’d pulled herself, calling out in vain to answers wrought by her own tongue.)

_When will this dream be over?_

Kagetora hums again, the vibrations resonating against Jeanne Alter’s shoulder. Her eyes scan Jeanne Alter’s face. Jeanne Alter looks away, but that doesn’t douse the light of knowing in her gaze, nor stop the words that follow: “Ah,” she says, “I understand. Do you still doubt my sincerity?”

“Fuck that,” Jeanne Alter mumbles. She should be waking soon. At any moment, the heat coming off Kagetora’s front will burst into plumes of fire; the tangled sheets will melt into ropes. They don’t, and Kagetora is still there, waiting. “Fuck you.”

Kagetora only smiles, closes her eyes. Her breath puffs out sharply, cresting over a row of purple marks set into Jeanne Alter’s shoulder. “If not that, then perhaps you doubt that this is real?”

(Once again, Kagetora is right, and Jeanne Alter hates most of all how easily she’s picked apart.)

“I never said that,” Jeanne Alter bluffs. “You’re fucking projecting.”

And Kagetora doesn’t deny it— just laughs. “When we first did this together, I must admit I thought it to be a dream, too,” she says. “After all, why would anyone choose to find company with me when there are so many other Servants here?”

“You’d manage.”

“I still wonder about that, sometimes. Coming back to me so many times, I thought that if this wasn’t some recurring dream, then you must have strange taste. Over time, I think I grew to understand the real reason: you’re just like me, wanting someone to understand you. Is that it?”

_It isn’t._

There’s no reason for Jeanne Alter’s pulse to have skipped a beat, but— too late, Kagetora’s felt it. She doesn’t wait for a response, but pulls back and presses her face to Jeanne Alter’s hair again. The subtle smile resting at the base of Jeanne Alter’s skull tells her that Kagetora thinks she’s right.

“I’m not as pathetic as you,” Jeanne Alter snaps. She tries to force some bite to her words, manages only a weak and crumbling edge. “I don’t need to be understood or validated like you. Some pitiful war god you are, Nagao.”

“Then why me?” asks Kagetora. “Why keep returning to me?”

Jeanne Alter shakes her head, teeth grinding together. “Because you’re entertaining enough. Keep talking to me like this, and I’ll change my goddamn mind.”

A whisper of laughter passes over the back of Jeanne Alter’s neck. “You always threaten this, and yet you still return to me. Or, if this is a dream, you still think of me.”

“Because you’re so goddamn annoying!” Jeanne Alter reaches back, swatting blindly for Kagetora’s head. “The only reason I’m here is because you won’t leave me the fuck alone!”

“Is that true?”

Jeanne Alter’s instinctive reply- _it is!_ \- catches in her throat. They’d both know the lie from the moment it left Jeanne Alter’s lips. Her reasons had been clear enough in the way she’d clung to Kagetora’s robes and pressed against her body, in her legs, still entangled with Kagetora’s. The god of war knows her, body and soul, in a way that no one else could ever hope to know the Dragon Witch, the bond between them forged in the same way they themselves had been.

For once, Kagetora doesn’t seem to want to rub in her correctness. She dips her head, pressing soothing kisses along Jeanne Alter’s scalp, patiently waiting for Jeanne Alter to find her next words. When they come, they’re no louder than a murmur, meant for not even the world to hear, just Kagetora: “Then, is this a dream?”

“It’s not,” Kagetora tells her.

“How can I be sure?”

“Hm…” Kagetora’s fingers drum over Jeanne Alter’s hip. “I guess you just have to trust that I’m telling you the truth.”

“Like I’d believe that.” Jeanne Alter sets her teeth with an audible click, shoulders slumping and pushing back into Kagetora’s chest. “Whatever. I’ll know it’s true if I wake up tomorrow and you’re still here. If not, I’ll know this was just another shitty dream.”

“A fair assessment,” Kagetora says. “Then, good night, Alter. I’ll see you in the morning.”

_You won’t, because this is a dream._

Those are the final notes of Jeanne Alter’s waking thoughts, replayed night after night like a chorus: hammered into her by memories of sprawling sheets, plain sun-bathed walls.

There are none of those in Chaldea. Only fluorescent lights, windowless rooms, the ambient drone of machinery.

On mornings after those nights spent with another’s warmth against her, there’s always something more: a mound of white and black beneath the covers, arms forming a crescent around Jeanne Alter’s body.


End file.
